One of the largest supermarket chains in Britain has announced that it intends to boycott Israeli agricultural exporters that market produce from the West Bank settlements.

The Co-operative Group, the UK's fifth biggest food retailer, announced Saturday that they are "no longer engaging with any supplier of produce known to be sourcing from the Israeli settlements".

Campaigners said it was the first time a supermarket anywhere in the west had taken such a position and that the widening of the Co-op’s human rights and trade policy represents a victory for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, called for in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations.